Compliance Jobs Report: Sept. 1
We begin the Compliance Jobs Report this week with a news dump from the Securities & Exchange Commission: two new division chiefs, plus a slew of staff appointments. We also have compliance officer departures from 21st Century Fox and Tenneco; a few promotions; more crazy details from the New Jersey Transit compliance officer scandal; some job openings, and more.
I gather these bits of information from LinkedIn, news alerts, and friends emailing me something to include. If you have a tip to pass along, email me at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn. This report depends on people like you helping me, so send some news!
Compliance Jobs News
We start with a slew of news from the Securities and Exchange Commission, which did a big news dump Thursday night…
- The Trump Administration seems poised to nominate Robert Jackson, law professor at Columbia University, to fill a Democratic slot on the SEC, possibly as soon as today. That would allow Senate Republicans to pair Jackson’s nomination with that of Hester Peirce, nominee for a Republican slot, and currently in nominee limbo; and push both through the nomination process together.
- SEC chairman Jay Clayton has named Jeffrey Harris director of the Division of Economic Risk and Analysis. Harris is a former chief economist for the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, and currently is a professor at American University, where he holds the Gary D. Cohn Goldman Sachs chair— yes, that Gary Cohn, top economic adviser to the president.
- Clayton also named Dalia Blass director of the Division of Investment Management. Blass is currently a partner at law firm Ropes & Gray. Blass also spent a decade working at the SEC in staff positions, most recently as assistant chief counsel to the Investment Management Division. Her husband, David, is former general counsel of the Investment Company Institute. Perhaps not surprisingly, the ICI was quick to issue a statement yesterday in praise of her appointment.
- Clayton also named several special advisers on his executive staff: John Cook, Jeffrey Dinwoodie, Raquel Fox, Kristina Littman, Alan Cohen, Christopher Carofine, and Shelby Begany Telle. Their remits and resumes are too long to mention here; the curious can read all about them on the SEC website.
No word yet on the most important question around the SEC right now, especially given Harris’ appointment: Will the Division of Economic Research & Analysis maintain the nerdy sense of humor in its Twitter feed?
Back in compliance officer world, Jeff Browning has been named chief risk officer at Fiserv. He had been chief audit executive at the Milwaukee-based financial IT company since 2012.
Rio Tinto has promoted Kenny Mok in Singapore, from global practice leader in compliance to head of compliance. Mok has been with Rio Tinto since 2013.
David Ackerman has left Sound Income Strategies, where he was chief compliance officer; and joined NICE Ltd. as a subject matter expert on regulatory compliance. He works in New York.
Mouhamadou Sow has joined Davis Vision as compliance manager for government programs. He previously was a compliance manager and Medicare auditor for Centene Corp.
Steve Grimes just left his job in Chicago as chief compliance officer for Tenneco. He is now a partner at law firm Winston Strawn, where he works on corporate compliance matters, investigations, and other fun stuff.
Brian Michael just left his job in Los Angeles as deputy general counsel and chief compliance officer at 21st Century Fox. He took a job as partner at law firm King and Spalding. Michael joined Fox in the midst of its phone-hacking scandal and helped to build the company’s compliance program after that.
And we have an update on the crazy story of Todd Barretta, fired last month from his job as chief compliance officer for New Jersey Transit. Barretta told New Jersey lawmakers last week that his ouster was retaliation by NJ Transit chief Steve Santoro for raising concerns about the hapless agency; Santoro says he fired Barretta for improper personal use of a company car. Now Gov. Chris Christie has chimed in, saying Barretta provided “false and retaliatory testimony.” Stay tuned.
Vendors & Service Providers
Word has emerged that Gil Soffer, managing partner at law firm Katten Muchin Rosen, is compliance monitor for Teva Pharmaceuticals. Global Investigations Review says Soffer landed the job in February, after Teva paid $519 million to settle FCPA charges with the U.S. Justice Department. Soffer was a mid-level Justice Department official in the last year of the Bush Administration in 2008. As such, he presumably crossed paths with Trevor McFadden, current deputy assistant attorney general in the Trump Administration. McFadden was special counsel to the deputy attorney general back then.
Forensic Risk Advisers has promoted two directors, Emma Hodges (London) and Yousr Khalil (Paris) to partners.
Tim Faherty, previously general manager for the Americas for the Hong Kong-based Red Flags Group, has opened shop as principal at Creid, a staffing and recruiting agency.
SAI Global has designated Sept. 26 as Compliance Officer Day. I’m not quite sure how they did that, but mark your calendars.
Milestones
Everson Zaczuk Bassinello just hit one year as chief compliance officer at Braskem.
Adriana Velazquez is celebrating five years at Walmart. She joined the company’s Mexico operations in 2012 as FCPA compliance director, and has been chief ethics & compliance officer for Mexico since 2016.
Abdullah Al-Rowais is celebrating 10 years as chief audit executive at Etihad Etisalat Co., a mobile phone network in Saudi Arabia.
Stacey Lallier is celebrating 10 years at Johnson & Johnson, in a variety of healthcare compliance roles. Since 2016 she has been director of strategic programs for bioresearch quality and compliance.
Open Req Orders
TechData is looking to hire an ethics and compliance analyst in Clearwater, Fla. You would work with Ana-Paola Capaldo-Escandell.
Over in Norway, Telenor is looking to hire a head of anti-corruption. The person would report to group ethics & compliance chief Camilla Orko.
If you have a tip or want to brag about your new job, promotion, career milestone, or anything else, just email me at [email protected] or find me on LinkedIn. I’m always happy to give credit to the many hard-working people here in our corner of the business universe.